Humble Grape raises £400k to accelerate growth

Humble Grape has hit its crowdfunding target, enabling it to accelerate growth by opening one to two new sites each year.

The wine bar and retailer concept, founded by James Dawson in 2009, has reached its £400,000 crowdfunding target via Seedrs.

The pitch on Seedrs said the company is launching a large flagship site in Canary Wharf in the second quarter of this year, and it plans to launch one to two each year after that.

It said: “Our four sites were all profitable within the first six months. We have four main revenue streams – wine bars and shops, online, wine club/ wine bank and wine school and events. We will use the funds to accelerate our growth. We consider the timing is perfect for us to create optimal growth in this sector of the industry.

"We will use the funds to open our fifth site. We plan to rapidly grow our new wine school and aim to improve our food offering. Funds will also allow us to hire a marketing and finance manager.”

Humble Grape started out as a wine importer and in 2014 it raised more than £500,000 to open its first high street venue.

It now imports more than 400 wines from 11 countries and it has wine shops and bars in Battersea, Fleet Street, Islington and Liverpool Street. The latter two sites were also funded via a successful crowdfunding campaign.